Blinker intersection not just an Oak Bluffs issue

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To the Editor:

This is in response to Nis Kildegaard’s Soundings column regarding the politics of the roundabout. If his contention is that since the Barnes Road intersection is in Oak Bluffs it is Oak Bluffs business, what they do with it then would also hold true for the YMCA, MV Hospital and the Regional High School. Just because these edifices happen to be in Oak Bluffs, he can’t possibly think that the rest of us shouldn’t have a say in their operation. Can he? Leaving out the fact that it was money raised from all Island towns or Island taxes that built and maintain them.

I am willing to bet that fewer Oak Bluffsians use that intersection than people from any other town. They have the option of going to Edgartown and/or Vineyard Haven by more direct routes than through the aforementioned intersection, but most other town travelers must use it. I still can’t understand why a traffic light is not an option. It could be used only during the high season, and the intersection could revert to a 4-way stop the rest of the year.

(Don’t tell me the DOT wouldn’t permit it. In politics there is always a special dispensation.)

Don’t say there isn’t a precedent. It is my understanding there was once a traffic light at the foot of Circuit Avenue, where the information booth now stands, and of course there’s a light at the drawbridge. And even the Blinker light was a traffic light. We had no trouble getting used to the temporary lights that were used for two winters during the rebuilding of the bridges on Beach Road.

Hey there’s an idea. How about a temporary light during July and August? On Martha’s Vineyard, Mr. Kildegaard needs to know, it takes more than a village.

Carolyn O’DalyKatama